Benefits for Bookkeepers

During the COVID-19 pandemic, [District Name] is striving to improve safety and reduce risk wherever possible. One safety measure is minimizing cash and check payments at our schools. To accomplish this, we use SchoolCash Online for all school items and activity fees. SchoolCash Online helps limit the number of people entering the school, reduces risk of lost payments, and allows teachers and office staff to focus on helping students and not counting cash.

Spend more time on what's important!

You will be able to focus on the core components of your role! With SchoolCash Online, you no longer need to spend time:

• responding to and redirecting calls, or in person inquiries, from parents looking for field trip, fee and item information.
• collecting payments, validating deposits from staff, coaches and sponsors, followed by bank deposits creation.
• circulating information about program or team fees, uniforms, event tickets, just to name a few.

Stay safe and secure

• Minimize the in-person activity in the office.
• Reduce, then eliminate, counting cash and cheques.
• No need to find a safe location to count cash and checks.
• There will no longer be a need for staff, coaches and sponsors to retain cash or checks after office hours.

Support for many catalog item types

• Just some examples include registration classroom supply fees, club dues, activity supplies, uniforms, tickets.

It's easy to use for you, your staff and your parents

• SchoolCash Online provides a centralized place to describe school fees and items. When the items are “attached” to students in the system, their parents receive automated notification and reminders.
• Coaches, staff and sponsors can provide the office with the item description and the list of associated students. There is a template you can provide.
• Parents can pay online, and the system tracks payments and issues receipts. It is fast, secure, and easy!

Spread the word to parents

Spread a simple message: "SchoolCash Online is our school district's preferred method of payment". Point them toward your district's SchoolCash Online site: [District SchoolCash Online URL]

What to keep in mind when creating an item

Ensure your item name clearly identifies the item

Make it easy for your parents to identify what is for sale. How? Consider the first 32 characters of an item name as prime real estate. Ensure it identifies what is being sold (e.g., Field Trip MMM DD). The most important information can be followed by the grade, and lastly school name. Be consistent in your naming convention, helps with item sorting

Ensure your item description is complete

Use the Description field to inform your parents with all the details. Be selfish! The more information you provide, the less you'll need to clarify through calls coming into the school. How? Staff, coaches, and club sponsors should provide the "5 W" details.

• WHO is the item intended for?
• WHAT is the item? Provide all the details.
• WHERE is the student attachment going, OR, WHERE can the item be picked up?
• WHEN is the event, OR, WHEN can the item be picked up?
• WHY should the item be purchased?

Think seasonally

When the new school year is upon you, prepare for the upcoming year! Review your previous year's catalog for items that could be copied to the new year. You can do this as a preparatory step: even if the item will need to be attached to students when the new year's SIS data is available, you can still create/copy the item as a first step and leave it in draft mode.

Remember: Review all dates, category accounts, and cost.

Always preview before making the item live

• Use the Preview button before it goes live to ensure the setup is correct, especially for items with options and choices.
• Ask yourself: Does the item appear and react the way you envisioned?

Review your draft items

Is the number of Draft items greater than zero? If yes, review each. You can continue editing the item, or you can delete the item if it's no longer needed or relevant.

Creating Public Items in SchoolCash Online

Creating Public items is useful for items to be offered to anyone, anywhere who do not have a child in the school or even the school district. All the purchaser requires is the SchoolCash Online URL for your district.

What types of items are well suited for posting in SchoolCash Online as Public?

• Theatre production, prom, fun fair, or game.
• Spirit wear, fundraiser items, or yearbooks from previous years.

What do purchasers see?

• On the district's SchoolCash Online web page, the purchaser can click "Items" in the top-right corner. All items made Public in the SchoolCash Catalog will then be visible to the purchaser.
• The purchaser can buy the item for themselves or, if they want to let the school know who they are purchasing for, they can provide a name in the "Who are you purchasing this for?" field. This information appears on SchoolCash Catalog reports.
• The purchaser has the choice of creating a SchoolCash Online account or using the Guest Checkout option to pay online, and the system tracks payments and issues receipts. It is fast, secure, and easy!

What should bookkeepers keep in mind?

• Attach Public items to your students. Why? It ensures your school community is "in the know": when the items are attached to students, parents receive automated notification and reminders. Parents will help promote the event or item within their circle.
• Include the school name at the beginning of the public item name AND include the school name in the description. Why? More than one school may be offering the item or event. Adding the school name confirms for the parents which school the item is being purchased from.
• You can quickly find your public items in the SchoolCash Catalog: Select "Only Public" in the SchoolCash Catalog to filter the items that are displayed. Review items to ensure they are meant to be public.

Public Item Reports

You can make an item Public if it can be purchased by anyone, anywhere, regardless of whether they have a child in the school or district. Purchasers simply require is the SchoolCash Online URL for your district to see available Public items.

The purchaser can buy the item for themselves or, if they want to let the school know who they are purchasing for, they can provide a name in the "Who are you purchasing this for?" field. Purchaser and Recipient information appear on SchoolCash Catalog reports.

Reports showing Public Item purchase information

• Item Order report and Item Option report: To see public purchase information for these two reports, you must select an item name when choosing filter options for the report. You will then see a checkbox for including public payments and associated filters.
• Payment Schedule report

Field values included in reports (PDF and CSV)

In terms of sequence, school community purchases are displayed first, followed Public purchases. The identifying fields in the reports are as follows:

• Purchaser Name and Email information
• Recipient Name information for items where the purchaser entered a recipient name in the "Who are you purchasing this for?" field during the checkout process

To increase parent awareness and SchoolCash Online registration rates:

• Send paper marketing material home. We provide a flyer on this tab of the site; see the "Handout: Parent Registration Instructions" button.
• Promote the SchoolCash online payment solution on both the district website and individual school websites. We provide multiple resources for your website administrator on this tab; see all of the buttons under "Update your district and school websites".
• Inform parents through the school's e-newsletter. We provide copy/paste-able text; see the "Newsletter Announcement" button.
• Make information available in the school office via signs, flyers, etc.
• Run friendly classroom competitions (or school panel competitions, such as among a group of elementary or high schools).
• Set up an information table at school events.
• Use school phone auto-dialer (message system). We provide copy/paste-able text; see the "Auto-dialer script" button.
• Add simplified messaging on the school's outdoor sign or marquee.
• Print registration information (with the URL for your district's SchoolCash Online site) on anything sent home.
• On all printed posters, flyers, newsletter articles, use a QR code that jumps to your district's SchoolCash Online site. We provide a QR Code Generator; see the "QR Code Generator" button.
• Encourage all teaching staff, coaches, and club leaders to promote the idea of online payments with students.
• Regularly make school announcements to inform students, staff, and school visitors.
• Remember that word of mouth will lead to some organic promotion.